Treatments for COVID-19: Current consensus
A note on WP:MEDRS: Per this Wikipedia policy, we must rely on the highest quality secondary sources and the recommendations of professional organizations and government bodies when determining the scientific consensus about medical treatments.
- Ivermectin: The highest quality sources (1 2 3 4) suggest Ivermectin is not an effective treatment for COVID-19. In all likelihood, ivermectin does not reduce all-cause mortality (moderate certainty) or improve quality of life (high certainty) when used to treat COVID-19 in the outpatient setting (4). Recommendations from relevant organizations can be summarized as:
Evidence of efficacy for ivermectin is inconclusive. It should not be used outside of clinical trials.
(May 2021, June 2021, June 2021, July 2021, July 2021) (WHO, FDA, IDSA, ASHP, CDC, NIH) - Chloroquine & hydroxychloroquine: The highest quality sources (1 2 3 4) demonstrate that neither is effective for treating COVID-19. These analyses accounted for use both alone and in combination with azithromycin. Some data suggest their usage may worsen outcomes. Recommendations from relevant organizations can be summarized:
Neither hydroxychloroquine nor chloroquine should be used, either alone or in combination with azithromycin, in inpatient or outpatient settings.
(July 2020, Aug 2020, Sep 2020, May 2021) (WHO, FDA, IDSA, ASHP, NIH) - Ivmmeta.com, c19ivermectin.com, c19hcq.com, hcqmeta.com, trialsitenews.com, etc: These sites are not reliable. The authors are pseudonymous. The findings have not been subject to peer review. We must rely on expert opinion, which describes these sites as unreliable. From published criticisms (1 2 3 4 5), it is clear that these analyses violate basic methodological norms which are known to cause spurious or false conclusions. These analyses include studies which have very small sample sizes, widely different dosages of treatment, open-label designs, different incompatible outcome measures, poor-quality control groups, and ad-hoc un-published trials which themselves did not undergo peer-review. (Dec 2020, Jan 2021, Feb 2021)